Creating Fandoms: Meet the Cast of ‘The Margins’

"Creating Fandoms” is a monthly editorial series by the Fanbase Press staff that will focus on the comic books, graphic novels, and other creative endeavors produced by Fanbase Press. With a focus on the creators involved, behind-the-scenes revelations, and advanced previews of things to come, this featured series will be your ticket to a sneak peek at what's being built inside the Fanbase.

In late February 2018, Fanbase Press announced the upcoming release of The Margins, the newest addition to its publishing line. The graphic novel, co-written by David Accampo (Lost Angels, DC’s New Talent Showcase 2017) and Paul Montgomery (Wormwood: A Serialized Mystery, Panels.net) and illustrated by Amanda Donahue, is a fantastical and layered tale that explores the positive and negative effects of the creative process, while also touching on themes of gatekeeping, isolation, and belief in one's self. All that, plus rocket ships and goblins and more!

Fanbase Press makes a point of publishing stories with impactful and memorable characters, and The Margins continues this tradition with an assortment of intriguing and offbeat, yet relatable, individuals within its pages. Below is an introduction to the wonderful cast of The Margins!

Charley Keo is a young artist from Toronto living in Portland, Oregon, with her girlfriend Rita. She's the kind of person who can curl up with a sketch book, turn on some bebop, a little Monk, and lose herself in two-point perspective for hours on end. She's missed her stop on the bus so often it'd be disingenuous to call it that, and she spends most evenings making up the difference on foot. She's not in a terrible hurry anyway, not until she's good enough to really put herself out there. Rita says her stuff's incredible. Undeniable. But she'd say that, wouldn't she? And maybe it will be. Someday. Until then, she's got this project with this guy, Gordy, she's only met online. Well, they've Skyped--his pitch about goblins and rockets and sky pirates breathless but so fleshed out. And he's local Portland. It could be okay. Practice anyway. Exposure.

Rita is at home no matter where she roams, even in damp, gray Portland. She's a consummate chef, more experimental than measured (which explains those muffins). She is protective of Charley, but newly eager to see her spread her wings. Burnt out on being the best cook in another chef's kitchen and never getting to sit down with her customers, Rita daydreams of launching her own food truck.

Gordy Lamb loves comics. The adventure! The brave new worlds! Ever since Jim Steranko leaned on his uncle Terry's Hyundai outside a convention in the early 90s, Gordy's wanted nothing more than to join a bullpen for the Big Two. Sweet, but a tad overbearing, he's been blocked on social media by more writers and artists than most Wednesday Warriors could even name. No. That's not fair. That's the old Gordy. The new Gordy strives to be more open to differing perspectives (while sharing his own insights at the same time!) Now that he's back in Portland helping his sister April sort out their grandparents' estate, it's time to get serious. Unfortunately, no matter how long he waits, inspiration refuses to strike. And then he finds the manuscript...

Typhon Creed has seen all the impossible things Rutger Hauer alluded to at the end of Blade Runner. All of it and more. He's an intrepid explorer of deepest space, born well after the nations of Earth unified then succumbed to the swell of the oceans. Still, that corn-fed humility of a native Iowan as he liberates a seemingly endless coterie of princesses and priestesses and, oddly, lady lion tamers, from as multifarious a horde of dark counts and shamans and corsairs. Always that smile, that taciturn charm.

Simon Gardner Kent wrote florid cosmic fiction in the space between the first and second World Wars. His Elad stories are populated by goblins and feathered pirates, and the adventurer Typhon Creed, Kent's sole human protagonist. Though he submitted his works to countless periodicals, this was never an open invitation for readers to join in his escapism. Instead, surmised one college zine writer of the early 80s, Kent merely wished to cement his place in the Weird cannon and legitimize his dominion over his creation, Elad, "such as it was." Kent was also something of a pulp fanboy. A frequenter of "letters to the editor" sections, he often provides the first quotes academics find and ultimately discard in writing about H.P. Lovecraft. Though he lacked sharp insight on Lovecraft's prose itself, he offered earnest advocacy for the man's oilier commentary on race and class. He left his wife and children and set off to sea in 1937, never to be seen again. So far as we know.

The Margins is currently available for pre-order through the Fanbase Press website (www.fanbasepress.com), and the graphic novel will be released for sale on July 23, 2018. Pre-orders made by June 1, 2018, will receive an exclusive sketch by Amanda Donahue, as well as a digital “Tales from the Margins” companion story by David Accampo and a bookplate signed by the entire creative team.